Whenever I have a fight with my partner, we have a period following the fight where he doesn’t talk to me, it happens every time and if I try and rush this process it just lengthens the time he’s not talking to me. He works away so this simply means he doesn’t call me. I want to talk but I know he doesn’t want to so I give him the space until he reaches out to me again. During this period I feel overwhelming anxiety worrying about when he’s going to get in contact again so that we can get back to normal or at least close to normal and I can feel good again. It is to the point where it completely consumes 90% of my thinking time and I feel so exhausted from it. I have tried on so many other thoughts but none of them seem to stick. I’ve tried describing the anxious/sad feeling in my body and just sitting with it but it does not ever go away, it is always there hanging over my head until he reaches out and we reconnect. This leaves me feeling powerless and out of control.

My prevailing thoughts are “when is he going to contact me?” and as each day goes by it increases and becomes “he must be really angry with me this time” followed by “I so badly want to reconnect and get us back to normal again”.

I’ve tried on thoughts such as “I don’t waste my time thinking about things I cannot control”, “I am giving him space to come back to me when he’s ready”, “we need this space to heal following our fight”, “I use this time to focus on other things in my life”.

But while the above thoughts work for a while, I always always always go back to the negative ones UNTIL he contacts me and I can feel ok again.

Help!